


Idol Speculation

by paperwar



Category: Seiyou Kottou Yougashiten | Antique Bakery
Genre: Gen, Idols, Musicians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-21
Updated: 2012-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-29 21:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperwar/pseuds/paperwar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tachibana has a new business plan. Ono and Eiji don't approve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Idol Speculation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snowynight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowynight/gifts).



> For [](http://eastasianfandomgiftbag.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**eastasianfandomgiftbag**](http://eastasianfandomgiftbag.dreamwidth.org/).

Ono patted his lips with a napkin and set down his fork. "Thank you, Chikage-san. These were very interesting."

Chikage beamed. Ono had to resist the urge to wipe away the smear of frosting on Chikage's cheekbone.

"So? What do you think?" Tachibana asked from across the table, which was littered with boxes from an assortment of other patisseries: all their Christmas specials. Antique's hadn't been selling very well yet for some reason, so Tachibana had sent Chikage out on a scouting mission.

Kanda leaned back in his chair and burped. Tachibana's hand darted out to smack him on the shoulder, almost as an afterthought.

"These were good," Kanda said, "but nothing compared to Sensei's! His are way better!"

"That's very kind," Ono said, "but these are, indeed, very good. We have tough competition."

"But from what you're saying, they're not so much better that ours would be completely disgusting in comparison!" Tachibana said, banging his fist on the table. "So there has to be another reason why our sales are down."

Kanda shrugged. "We'll figure it out. Sensei's cakes will be as delicious as always!"

**

The next morning, Tachibana banged through the door yelling, "I've got it!" He dropped into a chair and grumbled, "There's better company at the Patisserie Deux Pommes. Some idol band has taken to hanging out there. What was their name? Jump? Jumpin'?" He removed a piece of paper from his pocket. "Jump'N' ACTION," he read aloud, showing the name to Ono and Kanda. "What a stupid name. Anyway, so every time they show up, the other customers tell all their friends online. And now all these fans just hang out at there, hoping to catch them."

"I told you it wasn't Sensei's baking!" Kanda crowed.

Tachibana threw up his hands. "Maybe they'll get bored. Maybe they'll start going somewhere else." He sat up suddenly. "Maybe we should invite them here!" Then he slumped against the chair. "They must get tons of invitations. Why should they accept ours?" He sat back up again. "That's it. It's you," he said, pointing at Ono.

"Me?"

"Your demonic charm. We just have to get them to meet you and then they'll keep coming back." He narrowed his eyes. "Try not to start any fights, though. I know this is the longest you've ever worked anywhere. Don't ruin it."

"What makes you think that any of them would -- "

"Oh, come on," Tachibana said. "I'm the only guy you've ever met that could resist you, right?" Ono's eyes darted to the door. He hoped Chikage wouldn't choose that moment to come in. "It's just a matter of exposure," Tachibana said. "How can we get them in here?" He stood up and charged back out of the kitchen, muttering to himself.

At lunch, Tachibana presented his first idea. "We'll send a cake with a picture of you on it to their label's office."

Ono blinked. "I don't think that's going to work," he said, while Kanda bellowed with laughter.

"Why not? They do those photos on cakes these days. They won't be able to resist you!" Tachibana looked like a cat with a bowlful of milk.

"I don't think it's really the sort of cake you want to associate with Antique, though," Ono said.

Kanda came to his rescue: "Yeah, it's not fancy enough for Sensei!"

Tachibana frowned. "But what else could we do?" A second later he brightened. "We'll just send them some of your cakes. Once they taste them, they'll be sure to come here!" That afternoon, he arranged to have five of Ono's best desserts delivered to Jump'N' ACTION's label. At the last minute he decided to take them himself in his Ferrari.

Kanda, Ono and Chikage watched him go with varying expressions of bemusement and disbelief. An hour later, Tachibana trudged in, carrying the box of cakes, now dented on one side.

"What happened? They wouldn't take them?" Kanda asked.

Tachibana sighed and shoved the box onto a table. "They've been getting a lot of cake lately." Curling his lip in disgust, he said, "I saw some of the boxes in the garbage. They're from awful bakeries. Ours would absolutely stand out!"

"You tried to force them to take it, didn't you, old man?" Kanda jeered, pointing at the dented corner of the box.

"They didn't know what they were talking about. They didn't know what they were missing!" Tachibana growled. He shut his eyes, tipping his head back.

"Well, surely we just need to wait," Ono said. "The nature of idols and... and popular things like that is that they change quickly, right? So they probably won't go there anymore very soon."

"But they should come here instead!" Tachibana smacked the table with a hand. "And bring all their pretty young fans with them!"

"They might break up," Ono suggested. "Fashions change, anyway. Who's to say that cafe won't fall out of favor very soon?"

"Yeah, and then if we get trendy, suddenly we'll find ourselves out of style again soon, too!" Kanda said.

"You've never paid attention to fashion in your life, Eiji," Tachibana said, pointing a finger from beneath eyelids still half-closed. "How would you know?"

"He's right, though," Ono said, prompting a fist pump and a triumphant squawk from Kanda. "We have a lot of customers," Ono continued, "even if some of them have drifted away. They'll come back. Most of them. Probably."

"So what are you suggesting we do?" Tachibana challenged.

"What we do best. Make delicious, exquisite cake," Ono said, with perhaps more confidence than he felt.

Tachibana sneered, but couldn't come up with a rejoinder. Ono counted that as a victory.

**

On Tuesday, the cafe seemed a bit busier. Ono didn't gloat. It wasn't his style. But he felt a little more hopeful. Which was good, because Tachibana had started frequenting Jump'N' ACTION fan websites in order to determine their movements: Did they still favor Patisserie Deux Pommes? Was there any possibility that Tachibana could intercept them and press some cake boxes into their hands? Ono would look up from his work, or go find Tachibana to ask him a question, and find him bent over his phone, squinting at the screen, or hurrying upstairs to the office to use the internet there.

"You're a little distracted," Ono noted, after seeing Tachibana bobble the second order that afternoon.

Tachibana glared. "I'm just thinking about our future."

Ono bit his lip carefully, so Tachibana wouldn't notice, and retreated to the kitchen.

Antique was noticeably emptier on Wednesday; Tachibana wore a permanent glower as he kept refreshing the same websites. "There's no reason why we should be losing customers," he said. "They're not there today. Or at least if they are, no one's reported it. Maybe I should go check."

"Oh, that's going to be so obvious," Kanda scoffed. "You skulking around checking out the competition!"

Ono stepped in between them and put a conciliatory hand on Tachibana's shoulder. "Look." He pointed out the window at the dark sky. "You know it's always slower when the weather's bad."

"Not this slow," Tachibana said, tidying a stack of menus with a grimace.

Just then the door opened and a group of teenage girls hurried in, cheeks pink from the cold and hair damp with the first drops of rain. "I know!" one of them said, covering her mouth as she giggled. "I couldn't believe they would go someplace like that!" She looked around the cafe, eyes skimming approvingly over Kanda, and said, "This place is much better!"

Tachibana straightened up and went to greet them.

**

Tachibana became prone to spouting celebrity gossip at random moments, even if the celebrities were old paunchy men, not the sort he wanted in Antique anyway. On Thursday he came dashing in, hope revived in his eyes.

"What is it?" Kanda asked warily.

"They broke up!" Tachibana raised a fist in celebration. "One of them's going solo and one of them wants to focus on movies instead. Something like that."

"So what?" Kanda said. "Does that mean people will come back here? Maybe they've gotten used to the other place, even though their cake sucks compared to us." He shrugged. "So we'll get some new customers."

"Well," Ono sighed, "at least I guess that means Tachibana won't think there's anything drawing them away anymore."

"We'll be the first ones next time," Tachibana said. He brandished a well-thumbed teen magazine. "I bought this yesterday. I've started keeping track of all these musicians." He dragged Ono upstairs to the computer, Kanda trailing behind in curiosity.

Tachibana had assembled an impressive spreadsheet of band names, singles, and record companies, as well as the blogs and other social media sites of current idols. He indicated one column. "I've marked the ones that are just starting out. I'll send some of them cake early on to get them in here! And then we'll be set."

Kanda tilted his head. "You really want idols in here that much?"

"It'll be our latest attraction! Maybe you could name a cake after one of them or something."

"There sure are a lot of them. 4teen. World Kids. Power UP," Kanda read slowly, peering over Tachibana's shoulder. "How are you going to decide who gets cake?"

"Whichever ones are going to hit it big, of course."

"But how will you know?" Kanda cast a skeptical eye at him. "You don't know anything about music, do you?"

Tachibana, crossing his arms, sputtered, "I don't have to predict exactly! I'll just send cake to a lot of them!"

"How many?" Ono said. "Have you accounted for how much all that cake is going to cost?"

Tachibana glowered. "I'm the businessman here. Of course I have." When Ono raised his eyebrow, he coughed, "We'll just have to make up the costs in other ways."

"Well," Ono sighed, "it's not as if we don't send samples to other people." It was true: they sent cake to women's magazines, daytime television shows, and newspaper food critics. Sometimes this was at the recipient's request, and sometimes it was because Tachibana decided that gaining the person's favorable opinion was important.

He was usually right, too. Ono wasn't sure why this new scheme made him so uneasy. When he started Antique, Tachibana was new to the world of patisseries, but he'd paid attention and learned quickly. He was studying hard now, too: the spreadsheet was almost frighteningly detailed. Ono just wished that he had any way to judge whether Tachibana was studying the right things, drawing the right conclusions.

"Well," Ono said, "you do as you think best." He smiled, hoping Tachibana didn't see how forced it was, and drifted back downstairs. Cafes and bakeries rose and fell on the tides of fashion, Ono knew: decide you wanted to specialize in traditional Japanese sweets when suddenly everyone wanted French pastries and you could go bankrupt. He supposed it might not matter if Tachibana wanted to gamble on a different kind of fashion.

**

The next day, Tachibana burst into the kitchen with a grin spread across his face. "We've done it!"

"Done what?" Ono asked, bracing himself.

"Look at this!" Tachibana waved a sheet of paper. It was a printout of an e-mail confirming a commission for cakes for a wedding. They'd done several over the past few months, starting with the reception for the daughter of one of Tachibana's parents' business contacts. From there the number of wedding requests they'd gotten had increased steadily.

Ono wasn't so sure what was worth Tachibana's particular glee, until he squinted to read the name on the e-mail. "Oh my," he said faintly. "Is that... That can't be... ?"

Tachibana smirked and withdrew the paper, looking at it again as if to make sure. "I knew you'd recognize the name. Yes! Toshihiko from JAMS is getting married! And wants us to do the cakes!" He looked at Ono. "What's wrong? You look a little flushed."

Ono sighed. "I used to have the biggest crush on him in high school! I recorded every TV performance JAMS did. I was so sure he was gay, too. How depressing that he ended up with a woman."

Tachibana's eyebrow raised. "Oh? Maybe we'll get him in here to discuss the commission along with his fiancee. He'll probably love to meet you." His brow furrowed. "No, wait, that might be a bad idea. If the wedding gets called off, we'll get a bad reputation!" He waved a hand at Ono. "You'll have to stay hidden away if he comes along. Eiji will deal with him."

Ono frowned. "I think you're exaggerating. I'm sure we'll be able to have a professional meeting. But as you say, probably his fiancee will be the one to deal with us anyway."

Later on, Ono almost dropped an egg on the floor as he thought about it. Making a cake for Toshihiko! ... to marry a woman? Well, it didn't matter. Even if the singer was into men, it was unlikely that Ono would've ended up sleeping with him anyway. Still, he spared a sigh for teenage dreams shattered as he hurried to finish the choux.

Tachibana, as it turned out, was serious about Ono missing the meeting. "They're coming tomorrow. You can have the morning off," he said, waving his hand. "I'll tell them you're home sick or at the doctor for a check-up or something. Eiji and I will speak to them."

"I really don't think that will be necessary," Ono said. He squared his shoulders and added, in what he hoped was a coolly detached tone, "I'm a professional, Tachibana. And if I'm going to be making the cake for such a high-profile wedding, it's very important that I meet the clients and get to understand them and what they're looking for."

Tachibana narrowed his eyes. "You're still lusting after him, aren't you?"

"No! This has nothing to do with him!"

Kanda sprung to his teacher's defense, growling, "Yeah! Sensei is a total pro, old man, so don't get any stupid ideas!" He glowered at Tachibana, who glowered back.

"Please, please," Ono said, waving his hands and nudging the other two men apart. "I'm sure it will be fine. What time are they coming tomorrow?" He smiled, aiming to look calm and competent.

Tachibana sighed, uncrossed his arms, and said, "Right at nine o'clock."

"Then we'll have some of the just-baked items for the morning for them."

"Of course. You think I didn't plan that?" Tachibana humphed.

Later that night, after an aborted liaison at Lolipop (the young thing in question was actually so boring to grope in the alleyway outside the bar that Ono threw up his hands and went home), Ono dug through a battered cardboard box in the back of his closet. It was full of the only things he'd kept from high school; somehow most of this had come with him to Paris and back. Ridiculous, considering some of what was in there: odd snippets from the school newspaper, a crushed flower, a paper someone else had written. Ono recognized the name of the boy, but couldn't imagine why he would have his paper, much less have cherished it all these years. Maybe he was getting old, after all.

Ah. There it was. A dog-eared notebook from the very bottom of the box: a scrapbook, pages thick with tape and glue and paper clips, all used to hold down clippings from various heartthrob magazines of his youth. There was Toshihiko, in the prime of his youth, at the height of his popularity. A bemused smile played around Ono's lips as he paged through the book.

Tomorrow would be interesting, indeed. Oh, he planned on restraining himself. Because as delicious as it would be, Ono was a little tired of bridges burning without him meaning to set them alight. He liked working at Antique, valued his relationship with Kanda, wanted to see the boy through to him having his own patisserie.

Would it be worth jeopardizing that in order to have a fling with a former heartthrob? He was, he admitted, still a little afraid of what the answer might be.

**

As Ono did his customary preparations at the cafe that morning, he was pleased that his hands were steady, that he was moving with a measured pace around the floor.

Tachibana burst in, slamming the door against the wall. "The engagement's off!" He thrust his phone in Ono's face, though he only caught a glimpse of an e-mail canceling the appointment before Tachibana whipped the phone away again.

Kanda returned from the bathroom in a hurry, calling, "Wait, what happened?"

"I don't know," Tachibana snarled, "but obviously they won't need a cake now. Celebrities! Who knows what they're thinking?"

"Well," Ono said, "we don't have to worry about being subject to the whims of fashion then. In this case, anyway."

Tachibana shot him a look. "And we didn't have to worry about you. I still think you should've pretended you had a doctor's appointment."

"Don't be stupid! Of course Sensei needs to be around when we're talking about a cake he's going to make!" Kanda snapped.

Ono took a moment to wrestle down the disappointment in his stomach. He was too old for high school fantasies about celebrities, no matter how vaunted his own sex appeal was. Still, it would've been something special, to meet him. He shook his head to clear it of silly dreams. "Kanda-kun," he called out. "Let's talk about that new kind of eclair you wanted to make."

At lunchtime, Tachibana stuck his head in the kitchen. "That's all right," he said, as if their conversation earlier that day had continued unbroken. "We just need a new strategy. That's all." He scowled and flicked his eyes back towards the cafe, which was busy enough, Ono thought, even if it wasn't bustling. "I'll come up with something soon. Don't worry."

Ono made a noncommittal noise, just enough to let Tachibana know he was listening. Kanda jeered, "Yeah, let's see what ridiculous idea you come up with next time!"

"Kanda-kun," Ono said, "please pay more attention to that dough." Kanda yelped and began rolling it out again with an apology.

**

The next day began with a glorious sunrise that unfurled itself leisurely over the horizon, spreading across a cloudless sky. It was crisp out, but not too cold. Ono thought there was a definite increase in customers. Or possibly it was just that the ones that were there were livelier, more inclined to order multiple cups of tea and exclaim cheerfully over their cake while they chatted with their friends. He and Kanda shared a look of relief when a large group came in.

All week the weather remained clear. Shoppers, laden with just-bought presents, would come in smiling, glad to pull off their gloves and let their noses, red-tipped with cold, warm up. They lingered over their plates and were effusive in their praise. Take-out sales were increasing as well: people having year-end parties, but even more often, customers who'd just eaten a particular cake wanting a slice or three to share at home.

Ono noticed that Tachibana no longer hunched over his computer; Ono hadn't seen the idol spreadsheet in days. The teen magazine was wedged next to a bookshelf, forgotten where it had slipped off the desk.

The following Monday, Tachibana charged in early. "Good morning!" The uncharacteristic perkiness made Ono and Kanda regard him with faint suspicion.

"Our new plan," Tachibana said, with a smirk, "is..." He waited a moment, eyeing both Ono and Kanda, then chuckled. "The same as always, I guess. Making delicious cakes. That's what will bring the customers, and bring them back, right, Ono?"

Was Tachibana joking? Was he going to spring another bizarre marketing strategy on them? A few seconds passed. Ono let himself breathe again. "That's right," he said, smiling. "That's what we do best, isn't it, Kanda-kun?"

"Of course!" Kanda puffed up. "My cakes are getting pretty good! They're nothing compared to Sensei's, of course, but they're still better than those shit-cakes at the other places." He poked a finger at Tachibana. "See, old man? I told you we didn't have to worry!"

Tachibana threw his arms up. "Will you ever learn respect?" The two of them wrangled until the cafe opened. Ono felt a knot in his chest relax that he hadn't even known was there.

Christmas Eve turned out to be a banner day for Antique, nearly doubling their previous sales record. "I guess we keep sticking with what we know after all," Tachibana said as they closed up. "Though it's too bad we didn't get any of those idols in here. All those young girls running around after them!"

"Pervert," Kanda said.

"Am not! Besides, you're always ogling them too."

Kanda snorted. "I'm not old enough to be their father!"

"Neither am I!" Tachibana roared.

"You keep lying to yourself, old man!"

Ono smiled. Things were going to be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> With gratitude to Emily for advice on idol singers' names, kyuuketsukirui for the idol band names, and Phredd for a beta read!


End file.
